A hard knock
A cold clock
Ticking off my time
A long look
But no luck
Couldn't seem to find
Or unwind
Into peace of mind
While I was trying

I have found out that there is still a woman out there who is competing with me in the race for $500. Last Friday I weighed in and had gained 4 lbs. This is not a good thing. I had been a slacker though and had only put about a pinky's worth into my workout. I used the excuse that it was cold outside not to run and I joined the gym to only do four days of a thirty minute cardio. This does me no good. This week I began both cardio every day and added weight training. My legs presently feel like they might detach from the rest of my body, but I know that I am doing the right thing. They are not immobile, but they are definitely well worked. Today I will work gluts and calves and hamstrings. So tomorrow I might not be able to walk, we shall see. I have also changed some of the things I eat (i.e. no mayo in my tuna and little to no bread at lunch!). I am not yet willing to take the sugar out of my coffee, but I am willing for it to be my sugar for the day!

I can remember my Dad not letting me diet when my girlfriend Emily and I wanted to go on one when we were thirteen or fourteen. He told me I would need that later in life after I was eighteen and not in his house. I guess he had had enough of women with eating disorders in his life. It seems like he ministered to a college woman who was anorexic at one time. She was on his visit list at the hospitals. I can't say that I blame him. I don't know how to not eat. It just doesn't comply in my brain, but I can see how it could become an obsession of people. I can say even now, I am not on a diet, per se. I am more just eating differently. I am trying to remember how I ate when I was young. I am still the same height I was in highschool, so I shouldn't require any more calories than I did then. I am eating less than I usually eat and am trying not to eat late night because those are things that I have developed as an adult and I didn't do as a teen. I have found that mostly in my mid to late twenties I am returning to many of the habits of my youth. Things like...no drinking, no smoking, talk to God on a regular basis, call my Mom and let her know where I am and how long I will be and who I am with (especially when I go out of town), do something nice for someone with no expectations, love to be loved, have fun at least once a week, do my homework....or just work now!

I figured that in highschool I always had competition. The woman who I competed against the most, which in some areas there was no competition because she was a marvel, and in looking back at it, I don't know that she ever knew I was competing, was Rebekah. She used to challenge me something fierce. She was a better writer, both grammatically and in script, she was always a better pianist (like ten times better pianist), she was well liked by a lot of people who I could never seem to get the attention of, she was a better vocalist and a better swimmer. We were co-captains of the swim team our senior year. She typically challenged me in academics, however I was able to beat her in some of those areas. I can remember all of us sitting in second period AP Calculus listening to the morning annoucements my senior year and the literary magazine announcing the winners. For our class Rebekah was the typical winner every year mostly because she entered. I hadn't entered that year either, but my junior English teacher entered me with out knowledge, Mrs. Moseley. I had written a two page poem to make up for a quiz I missed in her class. I wrote it in the style of Faulkner's stream of consciousness. I had no idea that she liked it so much. There was shock and dismay when they annouced my name over the intercom. People were always mixing us up though so both of us went up there just to see if things were mixed up. I won $25 and was to read my poem at the "literary tea." I couldn't believe it and neither could she. In that excellence I found some humility because I didn't have any expectations surrounding it. I felt like someone had seen something in me that I had never seen. It was exposing. It felt good to be good at something though. That was the last time I excelled over Rebekah. It was the most unusual excellence.

Somehow having someone to compete with motivates me more. I guess that was part of the fun when I was in highschool. This woman, Jaclyn, who is still working to lose the weight, is my age, strangely enough. There are not many people my age in this county or in three counties for that matter, so it is nice to know that there is someone out there to challenge me. I would love to get back down to my sleek 120 lb body of sixteen, but alas, I recognize that may be a dream and the most I will accomplish might be 130. Gosh that sounds high, but I know that I am a woman of hips and curves now and not a girl in mid-development. I would also like to return of that feeling of humility and identity of self as though I will see in myself something I didn't know was there.